Free Writing

Select a much older or deceased person who has meaning for you. Describe what this person looks like as if you have a photograph in front of you. Give the facts as you know them to be. (date and place of birth, where he/she lived, who he married, how many children she had, what he did for a living, what she is famous for, how and when he died, etc.) Include a short piece describing an experience you had with this person, or an experience with this person that someone described to you.

When I knew James Femister, he was old, he had gray, average length hair, a few inches maybe. It’s a little more gray than white. He had a large, round nose, and a few pimples dotting his face. He had dentures for his top teeth, but you often couldn’t tell until he popped them out to show you. He always had on his white button down shirt with a few little stains on it, and khaki pants. I don’t know where he lived when he was young, I believe somewhere in New York. He was born on September 19^th. He married a woman who, before he married her, was named Dolores Henry. He and Dolores had two children, James and Jean. (Jean Femister then went on to marry John Coté.) He was once a food scientist, he worked a lot on creating almond substitute for people who were allergic to almonds. He did all sorts of strange experiments in his garage and basement, making strange pasts and cancer causing black dust. He wasn’t famous for anything, at least not to my knowledge. Once, when my immediate family and I were vacationing to FA for a week, my parents decided that the option that would be the best for the well being of my hamster would be for it to stay with my grandparents for the week. The week turned into two weeks, then two months, then two years. Once during that time period I went to visit them, and decided that I wanted to take a look at (formerly) my hamster. My grandpa picked it up, and put it directly down his shirt. His shirt had been tucked in, so the hamster just sort of ran around in its little pocket. I looked at him, dumbstruck for a few moments, then laughed. Yes, he was a little strange, but he never caused anyone any harm.

Workshop

To be honest, I have never really gotten used to sharing my writing with others. No matter how many times and high school we would have our "peer evaluation sessions" it still made my cheeks light up red and burn. Even then, it was mostly essays, mostly concrete facts that I could defend, that I could reason for, but not this time. I very rarely, if ever, share my creative work with others so this workshop was a very different experience for me. A lot of the comments were concerns that I had already had, but it's hard to put that across when you're not allowed to speak. It was also a little overwhelming, trying to keep track of 11 voices at once, especially when they're all saying different things. I think maybe it would be beneficial to have face to face sessions with more than one peer beforehand, because it seemed like there were a lot of differing opinions which make it a little difficult to come up with revisions that satisfy both viewpoints. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it, looking back, but it was definitely an interesting experience to have.